


Philosophy Class for Rock Bottom Demons

by BernRul



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Friendship/Love, Gen, Micheal deals with philosophy class, Missing Scene, Onesided Relationships - Freeform, Season/Series 02, and human stuff, depending on how you interpret certain relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-09-29 12:30:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17203451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BernRul/pseuds/BernRul
Summary: This is rock bottom, Micheal thinks, a superior being like him taking human philosophy class. Still, if Eleanor Shellstrop and Jason Rocks-for-Brains Mendoza can do it, he should have no trouble faking it long enough to gain the humans' trust.How hard can it be?





	Philosophy Class for Rock Bottom Demons

**Author's Note:**

> I love Michael's character arc in season 2, I only wish we could've seen more philosophy classe with him, and I haven't seen too many fics that deal with that. The relationships are mostly in the background. Content warning for some drunken kissing, though nothing beyond that.

As Michael watches the humans snipe and scurry about (he doesn't care what Eleanor says, that cockroach analogy was on point) he thinks,  _this is rock bottom._ A demon begging his torturees for help; that's as low as it gets.

Then Eleanor tells him he has to take philosophy classes.

Does she forget whom she's dealing with? He's not some zit-speckled check out boy who will "remember" that he already scanned her margarita mix if she yells enough. Despite his appearance of bespectacled innocence, at his core he is pure immortal evil that has been torturing humans since before her grandmother's grandmother's grandmother's grandmother was even concieved,  _thank you._ Does Eleanor know how much force is needed to pry the nail from a grown man's big toe? Does she know the sound a human makes when tossed into a giant juicer? No--but Michael does, and she'd best not forget it. 

Except maybe he's the one who's forgotten whom he's dealing with, as Eleanor throws his words back in his face until he's well and truly cornered. 

So now he's taking philosophy classes.

                                                                                                * * * * * 

Now this,  _this_ is rock bottom, Michael thinks, as Chidi, in all of his sweater-vested glory, hands out their neatly printed syllabi. 

"Right. Now that we all have our syllabi--"

"Oh, dip," Jason says, his eyes impossibly wide. "Are you sure that's safe?"

Chidi blinks. His forehead scrunches up in that way it does.

"Pardon?"

"I mean aren't those those weird monster thingies that make you like mad horny?"

Michael catches Eleanor's eyes, and they quickly look away.

"I--you're--no. Jason, you're thinking of a  _succubi_. These are  _syllabuses._ " Chidi winces, as if the improper grammer physically pains him.

It doesn't clear things up.

"Chidi, man, if you need to see a doctor I know this dope one in Jacksonville. She accepts food stamps as payment and doesn't ask questions if you come in with jellyfish stings around your ding dong--"

"Jason, you're thinking of--you know what, nevermind."

Then again, maybe it won't be so bad if he gets a front row seat to Chidi being tortured by his students. 

                                                                                                * * * * * 

The syllabus is garbage. Human philosophy is garbage. Every higher being knows that, even the stuck up angels farting around in the real Good Place. 

(Not that Michael's actually met an angel before, but still).

He'll just have to fake it. Put on his best face, lure the humans into trusting him.

It'll be easy.

                                                                                                 * * * * *

This is rock bottom, the knowledge of existence's fleeting nature. Of the expanding, gaping maw of the abyss that will devor them all as easily as dog-spiders devor human eyeballs. How can anyone expect him to go on like this, knowing the fate that almost certainly awaits him (because let's be real, Shawn  _will_ find out eventually)? Why was he even created all of those eons ago if this is his ultimate fate? How can existence even continue without Michael, who's always existed before? How can--?

It's okay. Eleanor's showed him. If he can just push those feelings down, and keep pushing and pushing and--

Eleanor's towering above him. Huh. Usually she's not because she's so ridiculously tiny. He remembers the reboots where she got so angry she physically attacked him--it was hilarious, like a chihuahua barking at a grizzly bear. Her eyes are more blue than green tonight, maybe because of her dress. 

"All humans are aware of death," she says,"so we're all a little bit sad, all the time. That's just the deal."

"Sounds like a crappy deal," he mutters.

"Well, yeah, it is," she says, sitting down, "but we don't get offered any other ones."

Eleanor's gaze is absent of any judgement or mockery or disdain. He can't recognize what he sees, because no one's ever looked at him that way before, not humans or demons or Janets. It's not sad but not happy either; it's more like she somehow knows what he's feeling even if he doesn't say it, and that's okay. Her eyes tell him that it's okay.

It doesn't make it better, exactly, but maybe it's not rock bottom either.

                                                                                                  * * * * *

"It's so forking stupid! 'How can you tell if an action is good or bad blah blah blah?' Because of the points, dummy! The  _points_ tell you if it's good or bad, Professor Know It All."

"I feel you, bud," Eleanor says, lounging with her feet on the coffee table, a notebook propped up against her legs. "But--and don't rip my head off or whatever you guys do--"

"It's rip your head off," Michael says. 

" _Right._ I'm just saying, maybe things would go a little better if you didn't rip the pages out of every book Chidi gives you."

She  _might_ have a point there.

                                                                                                * * * * *

"In this experiment, people continued 'shocking' patients even after they heard them beg and scream. The influence of authority was too strong, and overrode their moral instincts. So the question this possess is how do we stick to our morals in the face of conflicting authority? Yes, Michael?"

"I don't understand the problem. When your superiors tell you to up the voltage, it's a good thing. Why wouldn't I want to use the shocks--why are you all looking at me like that?"

All four humans stare at him like his human disguise just slipped. 

Chidi squints. He rubs his hand against his forehead. Michael can see the sweat beading on his face.

"Michael, you're still thinking like a demon. From a human perspective, we don't want to torture people. I think you need another ten lines."

Michael sighs, but he doesn't question it.

"People good," he mumbles, as the chalk screeches against the board. 

"Keep it up, bud," Chidi encourages. "You'll get there eventually."

                                                                                              * * * * *

"Why did you give me _Les Miserables_? That thing's almost as long as your stupid thesis!"

Chidi frowns. "Thank you, once again, for casually insulting my life's work."

"Come on, man, you gave Jason  _Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret."_

"Did you seriously just compare your intellectual abilities to those of Jason Mendoza?"

"...fair point."

                                                                                            * * * * *

What was Chidi's problem?

Michael searches for Eleanor's eyes. She's good at explaining things; out of all of the humans, she makes the most sense. But Eleanor won't look at him. She actually looks  _away_ from him, following wordlessly after Chidi.

Michael doesn't understand.

                                                                                            * * * * *

"I can't high five that!" Eleanor shouts. "No matter how much I want to."

Michael turns away, laughing. She seems like she's mad at him too, but then he gets her laughing with the reddit story. Things can't be that bad if he can still make her laugh. 

It doesn't last for long.

Eleanor tells him that this is entirely up to him to fix, then leaves, before he can think of a retort. He's left alone to wonder how the here he can worm his way back into Chidi's good graces.

Wait, what? Why does he even want to make it up to Chidi? He should be thrilled; he didn't want to attend those stupid, worthless, stupid, boring, stupid classess to begin with! Now he can have his proverbial cake (teaming up with the humans) and eat it too (no dumb classes). This is perfect.

Now he has more time to write fake torture reports instead of reading up on those old farts. Or complaining about reading with Eleanor and Jason and sometimes Tahani. Or seeing Tahani's shocked delight whenever he shares some surprising tidbits about her celebrity pals. Or trying not to laugh at the expression on Chidi's face during yet another of Jason's long winded anecdotes. Or sitting besides Eleanor, occassionally cheating off of her, each doing their best to make the other laugh. Now he doesn't have to waste any more time with any of that nonsense.

It's perfect.

                                                                                            * * * * *

There's something wrong with his chest as he watches Tahani clutch her diamond and Eleanor gush over her shrimp dispensary. It's warm, not warm like whenever he got too close to the fire pits, but softer, and not exactly unpleasant. He still doesn't get Chidi's deal, not entirely, but he's back on Team Cockroach, so everything's fine.

                                                                                            * * * * * 

He's on his best behavior for his first day back to philosophy class. He doesn't rip the pages out of his book, doesn't talk about torture or mention humans' stupid anatomy. He doesn't even laugh at Eleanor and Jason's many jokes about happiness pumps, though that's partly because he doesn't get most of them. 

                                                                                           * * * * * 

Chidi passes back last week's philosophy papers. "Everyone's made great progress since we've started. You should be proud."

Eleanor leans over to Michael. "What did you get, bud?"

He shows her.

"Dang, A. Good for you, Michael."

"Well, I am a superior being," he says, rubbing his leg and smiling like a dope.

"Hey, we should celebrate. Do demons celebrate? Or is that just torture for you guys?"

It's just torture. He knew better than to ask Eleanor if he can have a go at one of them (like forcing Jason to listen to a blow-by-blow recap of every Jaguars defeat). Besides, he doesn't really want to, anyway.

Huh. Imagine that.

Instead he says, "In some of the other reboots, you would try to distract me from investigating the neighborhood anamolies by doing fun human stuff. We played aracade games, sang karaoke, went bowling--"

Suddenly, Jason jumps into the conversation. "Laser tag! Did you play laser tag?"

Michael thinks. "No, we never got around to that."

"Yo, homies, we  _have_ to play laser tag. I am a beast at laser tag. Me and Pillboi would do a bunch of shrooms and then go crazy all over the place. Also, I think I shot a mall cop once. Or maybe that was a dream." 

Eleanor nods. "Laser tag could be fun. Don't know about the shrooms part."

She eyes Chidi, silently asking him. 

"Definitely not," he says. 

Twenty minutes later, thanks to Janet, Michael finds himself wearing purple plastic strapped over his chest and carrying a fake gun, surrounded by enough multi-colored smoke to fork up the humans' vision but not his. Without ever explicitly agreeing to anything, he and Eleanor have formed an alliance. He saves her from Jason's sneak attack, and together they shoot him in the chest twenty times.

"Yes!" Micheal shouts.

"Eat that!" Eleanor screams.

"Aw, man," Jason says, with the same dejected look as when he popped Pikachu. 

He and Eleanor high five. 

Then his chest lights up.

"Ooh," Tahani says, smiling like she can't believe her luck. Michael can't either. "I'm starting to get the hang of this!"

She notices the murderous glint in Eleanor's eyes, and bolts into the smoke. 

"Don't worry, I'll avenge you," Eleanor tells him, then she shouts after Tahani, "You're going to die, you sexy skyscraper!"

That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to him.

                                                                                     * * * * * 

So he can't marbalize Janet. And also may have teared up in front of her, despite no known demon ever crying before. So what?

                                                                                     * * * * *

Eleanor Shellstrop is an enigma. Nothing about her behavior on Earth indicates she should be able--or willing--to sincerely change, and yet she has. She has a limited human brain yet she keeps outwitting him. No one can rile him up like her, yet no one understands him quite like her, either. 

Also, he made him a paperclip bracelet that one time.

That's why he visits her instead of Chidi when he's feeling frustrated with ethics. Because even if she is a human, she understands him more than his own kind ever did. 

They sit across from eachother. In the artifical light, he can't tell if her eyes are more blue or green.

They talk a while, and in the end, she tells him that she believes in him. That she believes it will all work out. He doesn't fully understand why, but the words stay with him long after he leaves, keeping a smile on his face that he can't wipe away even if he tries. He's still smiling when he walks into his office and sees Shawn at his desk.

                                                                                    * * * * * 

Shawn tells him it's everything he ever wanted, and he can't disagree. Because it is. As an apprentice, toiling away on others' designs, he dreamed of the moment that his own work would be recognized. Micheal the Architect, senior staff member, exhalted in the Bad Place. 

It would be so easy to snatch the pin, place it on his lapel, and pretend that the last few months never happened.

He's not sure what will happen to Janet, though. It's not like they can realistically sneak her back to the warehouse. Maybe they'll reboot her, and reuse her for a replica neighborhood. As for the humans, he knows exactly what will happen to them; they'll be tortured forever. He tries to imagine it. For some reason, he keeps going back to the moment that Trevor threw his arm around Eleanor, prepared to take her to the "Bad Place," and the way she looked, resigned and disgusted all at once. 

He remembers stretching his hand out to her, and her accepting. He remembers leading her back to the fake Good Place.

It turns out he's already made his choice.

He doesn't even regret it.

                                                                                     * * * * *

He collapses into Eleanor's arms like a puppet whose strings were cut, resting his chin on her shoulder.

"I was so worried for you! You're my friends and I wanted to save you!"

Eleanor whispers that it's okay. He wishes he could believe her, he really does, but he can't escape the fact that they're completely and utterly forked. The humans still think he can get them to the real Good Place, but he knows that they don't have a chance. They're at the end of the road. They've seemingly run out of options.

But maybe he can figure it out, if he stalls long enough. He's done it before when he thought he hit rock bottom, and he can do it again. He always figures something out.

                                                                                     * * * * *

He doesn't figure it out.

                                                                                     * * * * *

The Shellstrops are right about one thing: drinking really does help. 

He tells stories about past reboots that get everyone laughing. Someone (Eleanor or Jason, he can't remember which) suggest Never Have I Ever. Michael figures out the trick after two turns, getting everyone, even Janet, out with gems like "never have I ever been rebooted," "never have I ever smashed food holes," "never have I ever had a beating heart," and "never have I ever been to Earth." By the time they try to gang up on him ("never have I ever tortured humans," "never have I ever worn a fake human suit," and Jason's "never have I ever worn a bowtie", which gets both Chidi and Tahani fuming  because _Micheal and weird turtle dealers aren' t the only one's who wear bowties, Jason_ ) it's already too late. 

"That's not, that's not even fair," Tahani says, swaying sligtly. "How do we even know--can you even get drunk?"

"I can," Michael says with dignity. "It just takes longer."

"Prove it!" Eleanor starts up the drunken chant, getting the others to all chime in. "Prove it! Prove it!"

So Michael downs an entire bottle of whiskey in one go.

In retrospect, that might not have been his smartest decision.

                                                                                    * * * * *

In the end, Eleanor's the one to come of with the crazy, bound to fail plan. The humans slowly trickle back to their beds, since humans need to be well rested before facing off against impossible odds, until it's just him and Eleanor left sprawled on the blanket, their legs stretching out before them. Eleanor rests against his side. Tonight, in the Michael-made starlight, her eyes look more green than blue. There's a pleasant buzz in Micheal's brain, leaving him light and (despite everything) happy.

"Micheal," Eleanor says suddenly. "Do you think there's something wrong with me?" 

"Not particularly," he says. "Why?"

"You said that me and Chidi were 'in love,'" she starts to use air quotes but gives up halfway. "But now we're not. Or  _he_ doesn't feel that way, or can't decide what way he feels, I don't even know. I don't know if it's me--if there's just something unloveable about me." 

Something about that statement hurts Micheal, but he's not sure why. He's no good with feelings talk--he only just learned what 'guilt' means. But Eleanor was there for him when he needed it ( _a smile across a table, a hand patting his back_ ) so he gives it his best shot.

"Chidi's just Chidi," he says. "He's trapped in his own Chidi world, which, just between us, is what made torturing him so fun. There's nothing wrong with you. Whatever Chidi's dealing with, it's not beccause you're 'unloveable' or whatever." 

They're quiet for a moment.

"Hey, Micheal? Do you really think kissing is that gross?"

His face twists in disgust. "Yes. But to be fair, I think a lot of human bodily functions are disgusting."

"Cuz we're like cockroaches," Eleanor nods sagely.

That's not...entirely right, but he can't figure out why.

"Sooooo," she says. He knows that look in her eyes. "Does that mean you wouldn't ever try kissing? Just to say you tried it?"

He barks out a laugh. "When would I ever get the chance to try it?"

"Well, we could. Right now. If you want."

Michael feels too warm again. He's having trouble meeting those more-green-than-blue eyes. He's suddenly aware of how close they are, pressed together like this.

"Why--would you--you, you actually want to?"

"Sure."

He's always trusted Eleanor before when it came to human things. And he can't lie to himself: he does like the feel of her in his arms, pressed so closely that he can feel her heart beat, away from everyone else. He doesn't want it to end.

"Okay," he says softly.

It's a little awkward at first, because Micheal doesn't know what to do while Eleanor shuffles around, positioning herself in front of him. She closes her eyes, so he does too. Her hands are on his back and her lips press against his. It's...nice. Her lips are soft and warm and not as gross as he expected. 

She pulls away too soon. She leans forward, like she wants to sit on his lap, but loses her balance. He catches her before she faceplants the grass. 

" 'm okay," she says. 

A voice in his head, which sounds suspiciously like Professor Buzzkill, tells him she's not.

"Okay, it's time for bed," he says. "Sleep it off."

She lets out a disappointed whine, but she doesn't fight him. He pulls her to her feet and walks her back to the clown house. Just as they reach the door ("Ya know," Eleanor slurrs, "tonight I'm not even gonna mind the creepy clowns watching me sleep."), a terrible thought occurs to him.

"Eleanor? Was I a rebound?"

"What? Pff, no. You're not a rebound. You're...you're Micheal."

He pretends that he knows what she means.

                                                                                        * * * * * 

 _Why_ didn't he grab another pin? Stupid, stupid. Eleanor watches him fumble through the jackets, trying not to freak out, but he can feel the tension radiating off of her from the seventh dimension.

It's too late. Shawn's on the balcony. He has two options. He could go through the portal after the others, leaving Eleanor behind to be torture. Forever. Or he could give her his pin, be retired for sure, while Eleanor has only a slim chance of winning her case. 

Once, there wouldn't have even been a choice. He doesn't want to be retired. He remembers his existential panic when Chidi explained death to him. He thought it was the worst possible fate.

Now, peering into Eleanor's panicked face, he can think of another.

She doesn't understand as he explains the trolley problem, not until he removes his senior staff pin and pins it on her dress.

"No," she says.

"Take care of the others," he says. He is sad that he won't get to see them all on the other side, but he knows that they're all in good hands if Eleanor's there to guide them. 

"Goodbye, Eleanor," he says, pushing her through the portal. He's tempted to kiss her before she goes, because that warm feeling is building up in his chest and it needs an outlet,  but there's no time. He hopes she understands all of the things he doesn't say, because he sure as hell doesn't. 

She vanishes.  _She's safe now_ , he thinks as he waits for Shawn to reach him. He knows that he's facing rock bottom--in all of eternity, only eleven demons have been retired--but he can't find it in himself to care.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Please let me know what you think!
> 
> The study Chidi references is the Milgram experiment. I'm not sure if it would get covered in a philosophy class, but it has some fascinating implications so I thought I'd throw it in.


End file.
